Feb 20, 2011 

We just started the first leg of our journey, a two-day visit to London, where a lot of round-the-world airfares start and finish. Luckily there are a few cheap flights to choose from between Wroclaw, our beautiful hometown, and London. We took Ryanair which, for its insanely cheap tickets puts several restrictions. BTW, it is cheaper to fly from Wroclaw to London (1:45 hours), than taking a bus from one London airport, Stanstead, to another, Heathrow (same travel time).

One of the restrictions is the luggage weight. You might think a carry-on limit of 10 kg and one piece of luggage up to 15 kg per person would not be sufficient for a family going away for 365 days. Well, we successfully squeezed in all the essentials thanks to Ania’s great packing discipline and challenging all of us on what is really needed. Travel light! What a great learning in prioritizing important stuff in life!

 The last days of preparations felt like the last kilometers of an Ironman. We were tired of all the preparations and juggling this process with work, school. The perspective of the finish… or rather starting line kept us going.

The school teachers and headmaster were very helpful in helping us take the kids out of school half way through the year. This is by no means a standard procedure. Yet with good intentions and commitment from all sides it is doable. The headmaster is a geography teacher, which perhaps was helpful to move things forward.

Now the schooling will be on our shoulders for the next 12 months. Ania, who will be the main home teacher, desires to share some more info on the homeschooling experience as we gain it.

In those last days before departure we often heard from people the following question “do you have everything planned and ready”?

Well, it is not a trip for 2 weeks, or even a month but for a much longer period covering so many places. So to have everything planned would be impossible. Besides, we still do not know a lot of things for sure but only have some approximations. One of the things more certain is our flight itinerary (Our Route). But even this is still in a flux since you cannot even fix certain flight dates so much ahead of time. Reservations systems simply do not allow it. This whole planning such just teaches us to be patient and exercise our faith.
On that, we heard a great quote recently in a movie:
If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

WAWA